Newbie Questions about Armagetron (Please have mercy)

[Sparky_92]

Hi, I've used the SEARCH method and looked through the WIKI. While they have helped, I still have some questions about setting up an armagetron server.

1. Can each client have their own different movie pack installed? Will it cause the game to go out of sync?
2. Is the installation of a movie pack simply unzipping everything into a MOVIEPACK folder in the Armagetron folder?
3. Please explain how Sumo is different than normal Fortress? I'm not sure what the objectives of Sumo are.
4. If I know that all my clients are running the newest version of Armagetron, what map should I be using instead of

   Code: Select all

   fourfold_for_old_clients-0.1.0.aamap.xml

   and what benefits does that provide our Lan party players?

Thanks again for being merciful with my idiot questions....

[gnorty]

1. Can each client have their own different movie pack installed? Will it cause the game to go out of sync?

The server is unaware of te client's moviepack, so yes, each client can have it's own

[*]Is the installation of a movie pack simply unzipping everything into a MOVIEPACK folder in the Armagetron folder?

Pretty much, yes. You also have to tell arma to use the moviepack in the settings menus.

[*]Please explain how Sumo is different than normal Fortress? I'm not sure what the objectives of Sumo are.

Sumo - the object is to stay in the circle at all times. you can go out, but only for a short time. In fortress, you don't die just because yuo are not in the zone! In fortress, if a single attacker and a single defender are in the zone, then it plays just like sumo from the defender's perspective. The object of Sumo? As the text says, "Stay inside and survive".

[*]If I know that all my clients are running the newest version of Armagetron, what map should I be using instead of

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fourfold_for_old_clients-0.1.0.aamap.xml

and what benefits does that provide our Lan party players?[/list]

Pass. But I would try that map and if it works, change nothing!

[wrtlprnft]

4. If I know that all my clients are running the newest version of Armagetron, what map should I be using instead of

Code: Select all

fourfold_for_old_clients-0.1.0.aamap.xml

and what benefits does that provide our Lan party players?

The for_old_clients map is basically a square map with different zones and spawn points. Since both only get used by the server (the client ignores them in the map, it gets that info directly from the server) the client doesn't even have to support maps.

The only restrictions are that your map has to be a square and all zones have to be the same size and growth rate (including win/killzones).

So no, no immediate advantage by changing it (Crazy Tronners wild fortress is an example of fortress with different maps, only allowing newer clients in).

[Sparky_92]

So no, no immediate advantage by changing it (Crazy Tronners wild fortress is an example of fortress with different maps, only allowing newer clients in).

Ah I see. I'm really interested in varying the Fortress maps. Playing vanilla fortress with two teams and two zones is fun but I'd like to see what else is there.

So are you telling me that if all my clients have the newest and same version of armagetron, then they will get the map I'm using automatically from my machine?

Is there a site that I can find many variations of fortress maps? I notice that iceman's site has many cool moviepacks, but where can I get new maps?

Here are some I would like to run, but I don't know where I can get the maps for these?

http://tron.plantpeanuts.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=223

Thanks again!

[wrtlprnft]

No, the clients either all need the maps installed in their resource directory, or you have to make them available on a resource server. See also Making Maps by Hand and Playing Maps.

As for already existing maps, there is the central resource repository, but it doesn't contain many fortress maps. You can also play on CT Fortress a bit, all the maps that you play there are downloaded to the user resource repository, so you can get them from there.

[Sparky_92]

As for already existing maps, there is the central resource repository, but it doesn't contain many fortress maps. You can also play on CT Fortress a bit, all the maps that you play there are downloaded to the user resource repository, so you can get them from there.

Ahhh I see. So I simply add the

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MAP_FILE Lucifer/crack_pipe-0.1.xml(http://www.davefancella.com/maps/crack_pipe-0.1.xml) 

to the config file.

Question: If the client doesn't have crack_pipe-0.1.xml in their lucifer folder, does that mean they will automatically try to download it from http://www.davefancella.com/ 's site?

[wrtlprnft]

No, if the client already has the file it won't try to download it again.

[Jonathan]

Question: If the client doesn't have crack_pipe-0.1.xml in their lucifer folder, does that mean they will automatically try to download it from http://www.davefancella.com/ 's site?

Is it me or did wrtlprnft misread it? (but his answer almost implies that clients that don't have it will download it, and I believe that is the case)

[Lucifer]

Aha, but the correct answer is that clients will first attempt to download it from the resource repository designated by the server, which defaults to nothing. If it fails (which it will if the server admin hasn't changed it), it will then attempt to download the map from the central resource repository.

So, to make sure clients can download the map, you have two options. Set up a webserver and do some settings magic (should be described in the wiki on one of the pages wrtlprnft linked), or just upload the map to the resource repository that wrtlprnft linked.

In a nutshell, if you run a map that ships with the game, you need do nothing other than configure the server to use it, which you already know how to do. If you want to run a map that doesn't ship with the game, you have to put it on the server, set the server to use it, then put it somewhere where the clients can download it. If you don't want to use our central resource repository, you will need to run a webserver. What would you like to do?

[gnorty]

What would you like to do?

I guess that would depend upon whether the LAN party comes equipped with a webserver and/or internet access for all parties. An interesting point really. arma is ideal for LAN parties, but the current setup is less than ideal for ad-hoc LANs. Given that map files are relatively small, and LAN bandwidth is high, why not a final option where there is nothing in cache, and no webserver, and no repo access, then the server could squirt the map to the clients directly?

[Lucifer]

Funny you should mention that. There's an embedded web server in the trunk, all it needs to do more or less what you said is to divine a host/ip address that it can use to set SERVER_REPOSITORY (or whichever setting it is, I forget) so it can direct clients to use it. The web server is already configured to serve up its own resources. This is theoretically a minor change, but without modifying the client, too, figuring out what to put in the first part of the url is, ummm, impossible?

You offered some code at one point (was it in irc earlier?). If you've got an idea how to do this, I can direct you where you need to go to make it happen. I'm just stumped on what to do in the condition where the server is behind a nat router, but doesn't know its public IP address or it's DNS name (if it has one) and still work without client modifications. If you do modify the client, it should be fairly trivial to backport the change to the 0.2.8 branch, and it would be worthwhile, I think.

[Sparky_92]

In a nutshell, if you run a map that ships with the game, you need do nothing other than configure the server to use it, which you already know how to do. If you want to run a map that doesn't ship with the game, you have to put it on the server, set the server to use it, then put it somewhere where the clients can download it. If you don't want to use our central resource repository, you will need to run a webserver. What would you like to do?

Lets take a look at this line of code in a config file:

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MAP_FILE Z-Man/fortress/greatmap.xml(http://resource.armagetronad.net/Anonymous/polygon/regular/greatmap.xml)

If greatmap.xml does not come with the regular Armagetron install, I have to dump it into my resource folder and make the folders for it. Then I have to tell all my friends at the lan party to copy it to their folders.

OR

I put it on my own webserver. That's fairly easy, I can use geocities, run apache on my machine, or whatever, and change the URL to that rather than resource.armagetronad.net.

The one last hiccup was that I had to also to make sure that the path specific in the XML file matches the one in the resource file and the web server.

I'm also not sure that Armagetron will create folders on the clients machines that aren't there. I'm still checking.

Lastly, I've learned that if I want the cool maps like these http://tron.plantpeanuts.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=223 I simply need to connect to the server and simply play through a rotation so that all are eventually downloaded to my machine.

[ed]

Or you could download CT Wild Maps from here:

http://plantpeanuts.co.uk/resource/ed/fortress/

if you did want to use these maps, as long as all your clients had internet access, you could always

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RESOURCE_REPOSITORY http://plantpeanuts.co.uk/resource/

MAP_FILE ed/fortress/map_name-0.0.1.aamap.xml

My maps are your maps.

[Lucifer]

I'll throw my own onto the pile. I think all the old ones are here too.

http://www.davefancella.com/maps

The ones with date names are randomly generated mazes. You'll see there isn't any particular organization, my server hasn't been running and I haven't had any great need to fix it yet. Soon, hopefully. After a serious OS upgrade (that's looking more and more like an upgrade to t2)

[Sparky_92]

Or you could download CT Wild Maps from here:

http://plantpeanuts.co.uk/resource/ed/fortress/

if you did want to use these maps, as long as all your clients had internet access, you could always

Code: Select all

RESOURCE_REPOSITORY http://plantpeanuts.co.uk/resource/

MAP_FILE ed/fortress/map_name-0.0.1.aamap.xml

My maps are your maps.

OMG I'm in heaven! Wow that's alot of maps.

Which are the most popular or the most extreme fun for teams?